Monday, August 07, 2006

A Strong Case For Impeachment


Almost eight years ago, a band of hot-headed, half-witted extremists in the House and Senate led primarily by the now disgraced Tom DeLay, came to the novel conclusion that when a president lies about an extra-marital indiscretion with a woman not his wife, it is grounds for impeachment. Fine. As long as they've set a precedent and lowered the bar to such an embarrassing degree, let's have a little peek into the case of George W. Bush, shall we?

Here's what we now know: The Central Intelligence Agency did, in fact, have evidence that Saddam Hussein had the means to develop chemical weapons, no question about it. State secret? Hardly. I knew he had the means to do so! You knew it too if you were paying attention. How? Because the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had stupidly supplied the Butcher of Baghdad with anthrax in the eighties! This was after he had used chemical agents to massacre thousands of Kurdish men, women and little children in Northern Iraq in 1985. How's that for a self-defeating foreign policy?

The question was not whether he had the capacity; The big question was whether or not the anthrax, in question, was still viable. After eight years or so, the potency of anthrax diminishes considerably and there was no evidence that he had tried to acquire any since - and please bear in mind that almost twenty years had passed. While the CIA may have had a small bit of inconclusive, unsubstantiated proof that Saddam had tried to get hold of chemical and nuclear weapons (documents from Niger that were obvious forgeries, for example), they had a mountain of evidence that he had not! That was the evidence that George W. Bush and the tidal wave of ignorance and incompetence that comprises his administration chose to ignore.

In January of 2003, before a joint session of the House of Representatives and two months prior to the stupidest foreign policy blunder in United States history, George W. Bush gave his State of the Union address. By now we all know the famous "sixteen words" by heart. He stood before the American people and said, without even a hint of shame:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa".

Thank goodness for speech writers, huh? Can you even imagine, in your wildest dreams, the First Fool coming up with so clear and literate a sentence extemporaneously? The only problem with that little quote is the fact that it was not just an incorrect statement; It was a bald-faced lie. The CIA, the State Department and the White House had known for months that the Niger/yellow-cake uranium story was bogus. In 2002, with the full knowledge of Dick Cheney's office, they sent Ambassador, Joseph Wilson, a team player from the pathetic administration of King George the First to Africa to check out the facts and he returned with a full report - a report that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld didn't want to hear: Saddam had made no such attempt. The forged signature on the document that claimed the attempt to obtain the dreaded substance was that of a Nigerian official who had been out of government for almost ten years. Inexplicably, it had been cooked up in the Italian embassy. Saddam had long ago, under the first president Bush and Bill Clinton, been rendered a fangless cobra. And we now know what happened after Wilson bravely stood up and exposed the administration's lies - they went after his wife! Whoa! What a bunch of tough guys, huh?

A month after the occupation began, when it became obvious to everyone that no WMD existed, they changed, as if by magic, the original intent of the invasion. It really wasn't about weapons of mass destruction after all. It was about freedom! Yeah! That's the ticket! Bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people! Hmm. Call it a hunch but I don't think that an administration that stole two elections in its own country gives a damn about freedom for Iraqis or anyone else for that matter. The really depressing thing is the fact that so many Americans foolishly swallowed this nonsense, hook, line and stinker. If twenty years of Viet Nam, Watergate and Iran Contra taught them anything, it should have been to be cynical towards anything their elected representatives try to sell them. When the dust is finally settled and the many criminal investigations against the most overtly criminal presidency in the history of the American republic are complete, the motivation for this war will be perfectly clear: OIL. To believe otherwise is to deceive oneself.

What was the result of the lie that William Jefferson Clinton told? A year long impeachment process which never should have happened in the first place that virtually crippled the executive branch of the government.

What have been the results of the lies, too numerous to detail, of George Walker Bush? Almost twenty-six hundred American youth and well over one hundred thousand Iraqi citizens have been needlessly slaughtered. In spite of the administration's denials to the contrary, Iraq is in the midst of a full-blown civil war and the entire region has been utterly destabilized. Experts on the subject of Iraq's history of tribal and religious violence who tried to warn the Bush Mob that just such a sectarian incursion would occur and the possible cause and effect an invasion would have with regard to surrounding countries (Bob Herbert of the New York Times, for instance), were arrogantly dismissed as left-wing extremists. As Richard Clarke, in his book "Against All Enemies" bluntly opined: "Trust me on this one: They haven't thought this thing through".

This little ditty of mine has only dealt with foreign affairs. Need I remind you of Bush's domestic crimes? Spying on the phone calls of American citizens without a court ordered warrant? Looting our economy? The subversion of the constitution? That's not to mention all of those so-called "signing statements" which gave him the right (at least in the minds of he and Alberto Gonzalez) to disregard the very laws he has vowed to "faithfully execute". Oh, this gets ugly, indeed - But it's also too good to be true! George W. Bush will be the first president in American history to go to federal prison. I am as sure of that as I am my own name.

In 1998, the shrill cries for the impeachment of Bill Clinton were everywhere. With the exception of John Conyers of Michigan and Maurice Hinchey of New York - and a handful of others - the possibility of impeaching George W. Bush isn't even considered, let alone discussed. What's wrong with this picture?

Am I missing something here?

Pray for peace.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

14 Comments:

At 8:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

C'mon Tom, of course you're missing something! Obviously you were tending your flower garden when the mass hypnosis of the American Citizenry was taking place. I, thank goodness, was out of the country at the time.

Keep snapping your fingers Tom, if the view from across the pond is anything to go by, people are starting to wake up. A few huge vats of strong black coffee would probably be advisable to have on hand.

Just wanted to let you know I'm still reading Tom, keep sending the emails.

Pray for sanity!

Sending thoughts and coffee from the Rock,
Ann

 
At 11:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Tom,

Another excellent posting, as usual. With regards to this one about impeachment and the preceeding one about Bush being a fool, my feeling is that it goes much beyond this. Frankly I think Bush is just too damm dumb to be able to think up all of this mess. He is simply the puppet whose strings are being pulled and until we get rid of whoever is pulling the strings, the problem would not be solved by impeaching him. We have to get rid of the whole sorry crew. Bush is stupid, Rumsfeld is a senile old fool, Cheney is evil incarnate and Rove will do anything to keep the Republicans in power. As for Condi, she is simply another form of puppet. The sad fact is that this crew doesn't care what happens to this country as long as they can control the power. A good example is the latest bid to increase the minimum wage. The Republicans don't give a shit about the minimum wage, they only wanted to increase tax cuts for the wealthy and tried to puch this through by attaching it to the minimum wage bill. As I have said before, my biggest fear is the 2008 election. Perhaps it is not completely correct to say that they stole the 2000 election as much as it was given to them, but they certainly manipulated the votes and stole the one in 2004. And they will try the same crap again in 2008.

Although I have been a life long Democrat, I am extremely frustrated with them at the moment and wish that they would grow some balls and go after these bastards the way the Republicans went after Clinton. Surely if government can come to a standstill because of a fucking blowjob, we can do something about a war and 6 years of lies to the American people.

Keep up the good work, Tom.

 
At 3:07 PM, Blogger stoney13 said...

Oh, Tom! Please don't tempt me to say such things as would get us BOTH visited by men in dark clothing!

Did you miss something? Yep! And guess what? YOU WERE MEANT TO MISS IT!! this war and all it's cheerleaders aresupported by big business, who owns the media! If I here one more right wind pundit spot of about the "Liberal Menia" I'm going to go slam-fucking balistic!!!! They dodn't WANT Presiden Pork Pie impeached, untill he finishes handing out the corporate welfare deals, big oil subsidies, and no bid contacts to his friends in the "Base"

Clinton got the screw because the Big Money HATED him! They love Georgie Pork Pie! He hands out money! Clinton wanted to do stupid things like pay off the deficit with it!

 
At 5:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've been reading the Information Clearing House articles linked to this site. At first I couldn't believe it. I've never heard of PNAC or Song Of America or the Downing Street memo, probably because of the lack of a Fairness Doctrine for many years now and the fact that I've been reluctant to turn on any news programs with young children always nearby. The result has been that I've made myself devastatingly ignorant of a lot of need-to-know information.
Most people I know don't seem to be aware of these things either. Those I've talked with seem to think this information must have been cooked up by some leftist journalists. However I checked it out on the internet and it certainly looks real.
These articles have painted a picture of republican leaders that has made it impossible to ever again give them the benefit of a doubt when it comes to motivations and policies. Now I understand what liberals are so upset about. Also upsetting is the fact that apparently a lot of republicans and conservatives know about these things and are either apathetic or even agree with the goals.
You spoke of the Bush administration's goals of "global militarization" awhile back and I thought that sounded crazy. This theory makes sense, however, in light of the fact that we're still in Iraq with no exit plan at all, and also that we've succeeded in alienating most of our allies. I think that scares me most of all.
I don't know what I'm going to do now: leave my party (and go where?) or stay and confront my leaders about this stuff.
Congratulations. You've gotten one stubborn republican to begin to see some light. While I probably will disagree with you about many details, I think in principle you are quite right about George W. Bush and the goals of this administration.

 
At 6:26 PM, Blogger billie said...

tom did you see any of the pbs frontline specials? i suggest that you check out the one on cheney. there is also one on rove and rumsfeld. very illuminating. if anyone should be impeached it is cheney- and rumsfeld should be fired. bush is too stupid to breathe- let alone run a country(into the ground).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/

 
At 7:35 PM, Blogger stoney13 said...

Betmo,

If they get rid of Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld, Bush will be unable to walk and chew gum at the same time! As far as being a political force, his days will be numbered! And the number will be 0!

Tom,

Got your post in my comments section, and the answer is YES!! I've been trying to send you emails, but they all come back undelivered, even the ones from Blogspot. I think there's a glitch in Hotmail.

Sorry about all the typos in my comment, but my IPS is doing wierd shit today and it sent the unproofread draft. At least it only sent it once!

 
At 8:18 PM, Blogger Tom Degan said...

Hey Stoney!
The link has been made! God bless us, one and all!
Cheers,
Tom Degan
PS - I'm sorry your emails are coming back unopened. I cannot explain why that would be. You messages are ALWAYS welcome this end!

 
At 8:47 PM, Blogger GC said...

I think that Dr. Condi is sexy ... there is something about that 'Evil Women' thing, you know all the black leather she wears in public and the whole riding crop she keeps hitting the Iraq minister with. Then there is the latex, yes hurt me ... hurt us ... yes hurt us all. We're bad , very bad ... hey, what was the topic again?

 
At 4:30 AM, Blogger Fenrir said...

In America, all of our political focus is on the White House. And its much more than our political focus - we go to the White House for Drama and Entertainment and Scandal. The media is a vicious hound-dog, complete with rabies and sharp teeth - it will bite into anything it can sink its teeth into. The President is expected to be above human flaw - we want to elect someone who will stand above human nature - someone who won't fall into temptation for pleasure, power, greed, or pig-headedness. As for pleasure, it is the easiest of those four temptations to prove, and something all Americans can relate to. Power, greed, and pig-headedness each has much grey area, is far harder to prove, gives much room for argument and debate, and is a flaw we choose not to identify within ourselves - so we do not relate with it. This is the real reason why Billy Boy was impeached but King George was not.

The British parliamentary system is a much better way of democracy than our American system. While all of the political pressure resides on the Prime Minister, all of the Scandal and Entertainment falls into the Royal Family. When Prince Charles has an affair it has no affect whatsoever on the British government - yet the Britains get their fun and the media gets their joyride.

Having that said, there was no manipulation of voting or whatever you said happened in 2004. The American public simply didn't like Kerry because he didn't seem to fit the character of a person who was "above" human nature. Bush has the character of someone with high morals, and thereby won many votes because people knew subconsiously that they would not see their own faults in Bush.

If you want a Democratic president in 2008, simply nominate a candidate who is characteristically moral and strong. Americans don't read the resumés of their future presidents. They pick the president of better character. Remember the first Roosevelt? Of course you don't - that was nearly 100 years ago. But when the radio made it into everybody's home, he was the first one to master a "radio personality." His "fireside chats" made Americans feel comfortable when he spoke. Americans have always been this way.

 
At 8:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

fenrir: Whoa!!! unless I misunderstood, you have your Roosevelts mixed up. Yes the first Roosevelt was almost 100 years ago but that was THEODORE Roosevelt. FRANKLIN Roosevelt, Teddy's cousin was who initiated the fireside chats. Theodore was a Republican and Franklin was a Democrat and called a traitor to his class because the family had always been Republican.

 
At 9:31 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tom,
You didn't miss anything. People find it easier to avoid that which makes them uncomfortable in any way. Scary numbers of people don't see what's going on. I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to change things that are clearly working against us. That of course includes the people we voted for. Sorry, ANNA

 
At 9:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maryanne here:

Just a sliver of hope regarding the media. Public Broadcasting has in the past two weeks been presenting a program entitled "AIR" (America's Investigative Reports)- local newspapers engaging in long term investigations which have brought to light serious malfeasance. The first, entitled "Crisis Management" concerned the manner in which FEMA dealt with Hurricane Frances in Florida long before Katrina made that agency notorious. The second was "Big Pharma's Shameful Secret", the criminal way in which SFBC was functioning. Both investigations have been successful since actions to change the situation resulted.

We are loking forward to more of these. Excellent reporting, presented in a compelling way.

Tom, one other point re: your reasoning for impeachment. No one in the media or elsewhere gives sufficient (or any) emphasis to this, THE MOST significant basis for all that has come to pass in the Bush administration- the Project for a New American Century. This laid out PRIOR to Bush's taking over the presidency, the administration's plans not only to invade Iraq, but to create a crisis if necessary to have cause to invade (911 was a boon to them).AND, if this isn't bad enough to engage in CONTINUOUS warfare. This plan is most chilling, cynical and unAmerican. If people in this country realized that warfare is and has been the central goal of this administration to which everything else is subjugated, including their lives, they might have a different view of this administration. And not take seriously the paternalistic, patronizing "concern" for our protection this president offers.

 
At 12:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I remember clearly, when Republican leadership and impeachment committee members were asked point blank why they pursued impeachment of Clinton in the House, when clearly it would not pass the Senate, the response simply was "because we could." Sadly, that is the difference. Our system of checks and balances has utterly failed.

And lest we not forget, this whole debachle fashioned by this Administation can be summed up easily in a single word ... GREED, and that my friends, means BIG BUSINESS. And systematically since Reagan came into office, they have been dismantling regulation put in place to control and manage them. And everything we see going on today, domestic and foreign is a direct by-product.

 
At 8:16 AM, Blogger padaajoshi said...

Tom:

It's up to YOU and the American (Merican) People.

Congress won't do shit.

They are running scared.

As Jim Hightower says, there's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.

The Yank Abroad.

 

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